The Time it Takes to Learn a Martial Art

Ask ten different
teachers how much time it takes to learn their traditional martial art, and you
would likely get 10 different answers. But is the answer so complex? In this
article I would attempt to demonstrate that it is not, and discuss a few myths
relating to the time which is actually required to learn a martial art.

Firstly,
we ought to define the question. It is usually asked by complete novices when
they first inquire for classes in a given school. The question can easily be
misunderstood, because everyone has a different sense of what it means to
“learn” an art. The novice is most often trying to ask a completely different
question, which is – how much time is it going to take me to defend myself?
Others might take it as simply asking about learning the entire curriculum
of an art. Wherein the person asking is thought of as pretentious, it might be
understood as him asking of the time it takes to master an art. As you
can see, these are three different questions. I wish to focus here on the one
relating to learning the actual full curriculum of an art, which is where things
get interesting. Of mastery I shall write later. Concerning basic self-defense
– this level of skill needs to be achieved within 1.5 years of practice,
preferably less, in most martial arts.

The supposedly oldschool
approach I was exposed to when I just started traditional martial arts was that
it can and should take one several decades to learn the curriculum. I
respectfully disagree. This conception is based on a modern method of teaching
– that of few and short weekly classes, in a group setting. Yet historically,
all that have mastered the traditional arts (with no exception) received a very
healthy dose of private or semi-private instruction. They also trained a lot
more. This changes things considerably.

I remember back in the
day, when I was training in Western Boxing, my coach believed that most boxers
require about 4 years of dedicated training, including much personal
instruction, before he would feel it was safe and responsible of him to send
them off to fight professionally in the ring (they would, of course, have
countless amateur fights and sparring matches by that time). Many coaches would
claim that this could be done in even less time. Why was his take on training,
however, so markedly different to that of many traditional martial arts
teacher?... That I found out only years later.

Now, in my opinion, it
ought not take one more than 4-7 years (for mature adults) to fully
learn the curriculum of a traditional art. The lower end of the scale (closer to 4 years) is for arts which contain
relatively less ‘material’ to study – are more focused and concise in their
principles (such as Wing Chun or Pigua Zhang), or for special cases of
extra-talented individuals or those with extensive prior experience in training
other arts. The longer time frame (closer to 7 years) is relevant mostly to
extra-extensive systems, such as various lineages of Bagua Zhang, and perhaps
systems which intentionally spend more time on the basics (various branches of
Taiji Quan). Therefore, on average, 5.5 years (4+7 / 2) to learn a system fully.
Get on the ins and outs of it all. Figure out how all most techniques are put
to use. Nail down the body mechanics. I have studied the greater portion of my
Xing Yi Quan system, over 95% of it, within 5 years, even though (and probably
because) the instruction I received was very traditional. How did I achieve
this, and why should this be the norm?

That shall now be explained.

In
the studying of the arts, I would count the following parameters as probably
the most important:

-
Quality instruction.

-
Time spent with the teacher.

-
Time spent training alone or with other people, with teacher not present.

-
(note I did not list ‘Talent’ – in the long term, it matters much less than
people think)

Let us assume one has
managed to find a good teacher (and has the proper mindset for learning the
art). That makes for 50% of ‘quality instruction’. But what else is vital is
for the instruction to be personal and hands on. The traditional arts were
created to be taught to family members and close friends and associates (within
one’s village or clan). They were not created as mass-marketing products. Their
entire essence relies on a transmission which is handed meticulously and with
great care and attention given to the finest details.

The way in which I was
taught and that in which I teach demands that the student will know the proper
alignment of each body part in every movement down to accuracy of less than a
single centimeter. Though fighting is messy and chaotic, in training the
practitioner should reach near perfection in performance, especially with
regard to angles and body alignment. This cannot be learnt properly in a large
group setting. The student has to either learn in a group consisting of five
people or less (not including the teacher), or supplement his larger classes
with many private ones.

Also,
while instructing, the teacher has to help the student by providing a direct
and almost limitless access to his own body. The student has to touch the
teacher’s body with his palms on spots relevant to what is being taught, and
also change palm positions while doing so. The student needs to be able to applying
techniques learned on the teacher – first cooperatively, and later with the
teacher providing reasonable resistance. The teacher ought to be able to
demonstrate everything being taught on resisting students, too. The student
needs to feel the pain and other physical and mental sensations brought upon by
various techniques, without overdoing it and within reasonable limits. Without
all of these things there could not manifest an effective transmission of an
art from one generation to the next. Successful teachers and skilled martial
artists can be produced otherwise, but they shall pass on would not truly
resemble the art of their forbearers.

The
more, the better? Certainly not in the martial arts.

Yet this alone will not
do. To learn a complete system within the 4-7 years time frame, one needs to
spend enough time actually training and going over what one has learnt; also
testing things, of course. What would I consider a good time? In my opinion, at
least 16 monthly hours of quality time (personal instruction)
with one’s teacher (only 4 hours a week), and 84 monthly hours of personal
training by oneself or with partners, without the teacher present (an average
of 3 hours a day). A total of 100 monthly hours. .

How much time are we
talking about here? Perhaps not as much
as you might have considered before. The time frame of 5.5 years (4-7 years
average) would yield 6600 hours of total training time, and only about 800 of
them with one’s teacher! That is not a lot. Interestingly enough, about 8 years
of 100 monthly hours will get one very near to the famous 10,000 hour golden
number, which is often claimed to be the number of training hours required for
one achieve world-class skill at a given profession, sport, art, etc.
Therefore, it is possible that by that time (8 years), it is reasonable to
assume that one should be able to achieve a decent level of ‘mastery’ (though
mastery, of course, has many levels in-itself, and complete mastery can last a
lifetime).

In the picture:My grand-teacher, master Zhou Jingxuan, teaching a young student in the
traditional manner.

So to sum things up – by
receiving 4 weekly hours of quality instruction and training another 3 hours a
day on average, one can learn a traditional martial art’s full curriculum in
4-7 years (note how it nicely coincides with the time it takes to earn a Phd).
But what about the ‘average Joe of martial arts schools’? You know – the guy
who walks in the gym for a total of 6 hours a week, trains in a group of 15-40
people, and gets no further instruction. How much time would it take such a
person to learn the same amount of material?

At 6 weekly hours (and I
am being generous here with the average Joes), or 288 yearly hours, one would
take nearly 23 years (!!) to attain the same number of training hours (6600)
that a person training more rigorously, and in the traditional method, has
accumulated in 5.5 years. In
addition to that, this person has received a fraction of the teacher’s
attention, challenging further his ability to grasp deeply the fundamentals and
deeper aspects of one’s art. It is no wonder then, that it is nowadays said
that an art takes decades to learn!

What
can this all teach us?

Martial arts are not a
race, and not everyone has the time to train 3 hours a day, or the funds or
opportunity to get personal quality instruction. For the average Joe, the 23
year learning curve will do just fine, because he or she is not interested in
becoming extremely proficient in a short time – they come to learn something
and have fun. As mentioned before, the onset of self-defense skills should be
rather quick in most schools, and health-wise martial arts provide a
contribution from day one. Time should then not be a big issue.

What is important is to
stress that the traditional arts were not originally intended to be a
decades-long path to success. They were created by people with an interest in
quick results, no less than the sports coaches of our time. The arts they
practiced needed to work, and one had to get good at them. But they were taught
in the context of a family, or a tightly-knit society, in which quality
instruction and time to train were abundant commodities. In this kind of
setting, even a person who begins training at the ages of 25-35 will be a
healthy and strong young man or woman when he or she reaches a deep level of
understanding of their art. Let alone when people are taught from a younger
age.

______________________________________________

The author of this article, Jonathan Bluestein, can be contacted directly at:jonathan.bluestein@gmail.com . Shifu Bluestein is a practitioner and teacher of Xing Yi Quan, Pigua Zhang and Jook Lum Southern Mantis. These arts are taught by him at his academy in Israel, and also in seminars abroad. Shifu Bluestein is also a best-selling author on the martial arts. Be sure to check out his popular books:Research of Martial Artsand The Martial Arts Teacher.

You may also subscribe to shifu Bluestein's youtube channel, which is regularly update with rare and fascinating martial arts videos:

Myself and other martial arts teacher care less, because we would be doing this for our entire lives anyhow. But for a person who knows he might:

- Get married within 5 years.- Move abroad next year.- Will finish university in 7 years.- Is only gonna be in China for 4 years.- etc...

For these people and many others, it is very important to know what to expect in terms of their schedule. Maybe this will help them train more. Maybe they're training more than they should for their goals. Perhaps in the time they have to practice martial arts they can do something else and gain more in their personal lives? These are some of the reasons because of which this article is important.

It is my belief that one cannot place themselves on a timeline. There is no schedule to keep. You will find a time in your studies where you are getting more out of your own self-discovery than from the classes that you attend. That is the time to move on - to continue with your own exploration of the art as it applies to you or seek out more challenging instruction. The only one who truly knows how well you have internalized an art is YOU.

There is a wide range of time to assimilate an art - with all respect to Yogi Berra, it takes as long as it takes. From personal observation, those who are 'naturals' often stop - and those who have to struggle with every level, continue. Each has found what they were looking for.

I liked what was said about learning martial arts not being a race. Most people when they want to learn something new, they want to learn it right now! That's not how learning works. You could probably pick up the basics in a short amount of time, but if you want to really learn something, it will probably take years. It will take making things a habit and doing things consistently over time. This article could applied to any art as well as martial arts. http://www.master-sh-yu.com

Nice article Johnathan! I agree that 4-7 years is a good average time frae for learning an art and with the fact the everyone has different goals and training regimes. People who are on the path and looking to really 'master' an art will not fret about the time it takes to learn a curriculum, simply enjoying the journey and working towards the goal of knowing all the methods so they can train them to acquite the skills of the art.

But this question arises constantly in training halls by new students and is worth addressing. The answer "It all depends on you" is very unsatisfying to hear as a beginner and so when I thought about this I did the same type of calculations, what is the training hours involved? It is hours, not years that really counts in the end.

If learning a TMA is for self defense, there are many aspects TMAs do not teach regarding self defense (i.e., type of violence (asocial vs pedator), common attacks with weapons, escalating use of force, legal aspect of self defense, the after fight). I teach Wing Chun and I tell any potential student that I teach Wing Chun, not self defense, which is a legal term.